Even on a rainy day, adoptions at Hollywood Feed are fine!

If you keep up with the newest holiday listings and reasons to send holiday cards, you’ll see that pretty much anyone can make up a holiday these days! If you look at The Ultimate Holiday Site (Hallmark, of course) you’ll see that yesterday alone (Jan. 1) even if we celebrated New Year’s Day we likely missed these other very important holidays:

1. National Bloody Mary Day
2. National First Foot Day

But today, on this 2nd of January 2012, let us not miss National Pet Travel Safety Day! National Pet Travel Safety Day (or NPTSD) is a holiday “created” by Colleen Paige, a Celebrity Pet & Safety Expert and Animal Behaviorist.

Although we can debate the merits of such a created day, the occurrence of the day gives Real Good Dog Rescue a real good reason to review some safety tips for pet travel. More and more pets are going on short and long trips with us and it’s a likely bet that we aren’t all paying attention to the various suggestions that people offer for making driving trips with canines a safer experience for all in the vehicle.

How many of you drive with your canine friend having full run of your vehicle? We’ll raise our hands here at this house. Not a good idea at all!

Research conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and Kurgo (a pet product company) and reported by CBS in 2010 reported that 80% of respondents have driven with their pets on a variety of car trips … but only 17% said they use any form of pet restraint system.

According to AAA, driving with an unrestrained dog causes a distraction that is equal to talking on a cell phone or texting while driving! Yikes!

According to Colleen Paige,

At just 10 M.P.H. to an abrupt stop, such as an animal running in front of your car, your dog is at great risk of flying into or through the windshield and, at the very least, suffering broken bones from the blunt force trauma of being thrust into the back of the seat, hitting the dashboard, or flying out the back of your vehicle. Many small dogs that ride on their owner’s laps are often crushed to death from the impact of the person’s body against the steering wheel, where sadly the dog will often be between. Source

Now, how many of you can raise your hands for allowing the dogs to stick their heads out the window, sit in your lap while you’re driving, or ride in the back of an open truck? Let’s hope few or none of you! In addition to being cautious about these things for OUR safety, we also need to be cautious about these things for the safety of our dear canine friends!

Writing in The Whole Dog Journal, Pat Miller listed several safety hazards associated with the above.

• A dog who interferes with driver’s physical ability to drive the car. A dog sitting on the driver’s lap can interfere with steering. A dog who gets on or under the accelerator or brake pedals, hits the gear shift, or blocks the driver’s view can cause an accident.
• A dog who interferes with driver’s mental ability to drive the car. When the driver’s attention is taken away from the road to deal with dog’s behavior, the dog has become a safety hazard.
• A loose dog can become a flying missile if the car stops abruptly or is hit by another car.
• If the car windows break or the doors pop open in an accident, a loose dog can escape, get hit on the road, or run off and become lost.
• An unsecured dog can interfere with the efforts of rescue workers in an emergency.
• A dog with her head out the window can suffer injury to her eyes from bits of flying debris, or worse, can have her head smashed by objects that pass too close to the car (other vehicle mirrors, signs, branches).
• A loose dog can fall or jump out of an open window or back of a truck. Source

None of us wants bad things to happen to our canine friends. But what could or should we do? Here are a few ideas:

• Get a good safety harness and use that with your dog’s seatbelt – they allow a little movement, but limit free range vehicle roaming.
• Use a crate – and make sure you RESTRAIN the crate by looping it through seatbelts or using some tie downs with it!
• Don’t have a lot of confusion and craziness of human passengers as that will add to the confusion and craziness of all canine passengers.
• Use safety barriers in your vehicle.

There are many resources that are available for you to review and that will help you provide a safer traveling experience for your fine furry friend. Take a few minutes and explore some of them!

• AAA’s PetSpot has great tips for safe car travel with your canine friends. In another location on their PetSpot site, AAA has a link to all their articles about pet-friendly travel.
• Colleen Paige’s post has some good tips for driving a new dog or puppy home as well as a nice list of items you should have in case you’re going on any long road trip with a dog. AAA’s PetSpot has a very useful list of even more items you should take when you travel with Fido or Fluffy.
• Pat Miller’s post has some strategies for canines who chew seat belts! Pat also gives some excellent tips and tricks for training dogs to have good car manners.
• ASPCA’s page gives 10 tips for safe and smooth car travel.
• Bark Buckle UP has a wealth of information for all types of travel with dogs.

Let’s all resolve (since it’s still really close to New Year’s Day when we’re “allowed” to make resolutions) to travel more safely with all our pets this year! Below are some pictures of Margaret the Basset Hound who was a GREAT traveler!

Tags: accidents, safety, travel